Women's Basketball Snaps Skid at Albertus Magnus

Senior Erin Laney, playing in her home state of Connecticut for the first time as a Mule, scored five points and pulled down 11 rebounds.

The Muhlenberg women’s basketball team came away from a trip to Albertus Magnus with a case of slumpus interruptus.

Stenger made three of the Mules' six three-pointers and finished with nine points.

The Mules pulled ahead late in the first half and maintained a comfortable lead throughout the second in defeating Albertus Magnus, 80-68, in their last game of 2013. The loss snapped a four-game losing skid and prevented Muhlenberg (5-4) from suffering its first five-game skid in nine years.

Junior Leanna Tallamy led four Mules in double figures with 15 points. Junior Laura Gregory scored a career-high 13 points, and classmate Nicole Pepe also scored 13, one off her career high. Senior Leeann Lanza notched her fifth career double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.

The win came after a rough eight-day stretch in which Muhlenberg sandwiched losses to rivals Johns Hopkins and DeSales around finals week.

“We just played like a team and stopped worrying about the little things,” said Gregory. “We had to put all the emotion and stress from finals behind us.”

Competing against a Falcon team that played only one woman taller than 5-9, the bigger Mules had a predictable 55-33 advantage in rebounds and scored inside and on putbacks. But they also used their athleticism to score points on the perimeter and in transition.

Five different players had at least three assists, led by Gregory’s five.

“It was just looking for the open player and making the easy pass,” said Gregory, who scored nine of her points in the first half. “They played 2-3 zone almost the entire game and we practiced that yesterday.”

Albertus Magnus (2-6) held its final lead at 21-19 with 7:37 left in the half before the Mules went on a 7-0 run. Junior Janelle Fleet hit a pullup jumper on the break to put Muhlenberg ahead, then fed junior Abby Stenger for a three-pointer after a steal by Tallamy.

The Mules closed the half on a 10-2 run to take a 44-32 lead into the locker room, and the Falcons never got closer than seven points in the second half. The lead ballooned to 21 (68-47) on Lanza’s jumper with 11:17 left and remained 15 or higher until Albertus Magnus scored the final seven points of the game.

The losing streak over, the Mules have three weeks off to relax with their families before returning to action on Jan. 6 at Elizabethtown.